Long before I was a chocolate maker, I was a river guide on the Colorado River through Grand Canyon. Adventurous, yes. Sunny days, moonlit nights, and unbelievable beauty in one of the world’s great wonders? That, too.
If the Grand Canyon taught me anything (bare toes meeting Mr. Scorpion at night aside) it’s that before there can be Big, it all starts with small: rain droplets merge into tiny trickles and grow into raging rivers, clefts in red rock crack deeper to become canyons, one Yes begins a journey, and then, becomes a lifetime, the way the You Are Here on a map fossilizes time the minute we take a step in a new direction. In chocolate it’s no different: it begins small, with a lowly, downright homely, cacao bean.
Where craft chocolate makers begin is also this place of small. Learning the skills easily overshadow the bean part of the equation: the chocolate maker’s forward-motion focus is transformation: take B and end up with C. The processes of getting there offer a fantastic new landscape: rolling hills of roasting and its profiles, temperatures, and aromas; the dusty land of winnowing; the meltdown lava-scape of melanging and conching, the tempering and moulding boulder climb of precision that where fledgling and seasoned chocolate makers alike to tumble. Each new bend demands new skills and re-focused attention, and when we lose sight of the path pokes well-timed prickly jabs reminders that no matter how far we’ve come, it is the bean where it all began, and the bean that guides us. The epilogue to a bean to bar making journey? no matter how far we travel, we’ll still find new layers to explore.
When I decided to craft my first batch, I didn’t know a Camino Verde from a Peru Tumbes. What I read or was told only described what I hadn’t experienced; if we’re stuck in a headwind at mile 0 what good is it to be told that it’s at mile 100 where shit starts to hits the proverbial fan? There’s no amount of theory (or mansplaining) that can replace getting in the boat and rowing. I started, not because I ate some really amazing chocolate, but because I walked into a warehouse that smelled of every chocolate dream I’d ever had, and some I never knew existed. I closed my eyes, inner screams of chocolate happy dancing smells delight aside, and when I opened them what I saw were beans.
This is where I say the sight stopped me in my tracks. Stacks of jute sacks and a room of barrels, each filled with different origins of beans. Twenty-five different origins, to be exact. It was equal parts revelatory and dumbfounding. Chocolate came from cacao beans in a simple (or so I thought) equation: beans + whatever it took to make it = chocolate, with the “whatever it took” part a something I’d never wondered about. If all beginnings are a question: what shall I be? Where shall I go? how close, how far, how will I get there? For the craft chocolate maker the question of where to begin leads straight to a cliff edge choice of many, many origins and bean choices, and with each bean chosen, to a leap in a new WTF direction.
I told myself it would be like learning to row a boat. By rowing, I mean navigating the river by handling the oars, steering the best course, hefting hard when the wind blows upstream, and understanding in the face of a towering wave when to give it my all, and then some. The river flows downstream, but that’s where the easy part ends: rocks, steep drops, tsunamis of whitewater, waves looming so high they block the sky, the roar of rapids like 747s revving for take-off, and eddies and swirls of current all clamor, call for attention, and demand a response. Which is not the same as learning to read the water: yanking hard on the oars because all hell broke loose is river guiding triage, but knowing how to avoid said hell, understanding what the river is saying in a language of ripples, waves pulsing and building, seams of current and ridges where the horizon line ends, is an alchemical blend of artistry and fluency. Reading water is how we understand what that teensy snarling lip curl of a wave is saying (hidden boat-ripper rock too close for comfort) and what the smooth glossy hump of current hides (bigger rock but down deep). Conversing with the river took time; rowing the boat was how to learn the language.
And so I began listening to cacao beans. Or, at least, trying. And while I listened I began making chocolate. A Peru Tumbes and her distant cousin, a Peru Maranon, had a things to say about just how different two beans from a single country of origin can be. I roasted both for the same amount of time, at the same roasting profile in a drum roaster. I crafted both at 75%, and refined them into the same smoothness for the same amount of time. The Tumbes began with what my grandmother would have called back talk, with a bit of a sassy bite that eventually mellowed. The Maranon had a sting at the start that intensified into a horrifying chalkiness of astringency, a yang to the Tumbes’ yin. They spoke directly about terroir, the differences in flavor profile due to soil and environment and climate, but just as insightfully, of regional farming preferences and how entire communities reside within a bean.
A Camino Verde from Ecuador had loads to say about depth, intensity, and an acrid lesson in the concept of one-size-fits-all: a roast is as individual as the bean, and each origin has its own window of opportunity for the best use of heat. The only way to learn this is to roast, to listen, and to smell. I was advised to listen for the pops as the beans reached their optimal temperature, so in my thinking if a few pops were good, more is better. The charred hamburger smell was not only a sign I’d pushed the roast too far, but during my next several roasts because I flinched with the first pop, it lead me to understand how the converse of roasting has its version to tell: not enough heat leaves a bean mute, and if the conglomerate secrets sheaved between layers of acidity don’t have a chance to speak, they’re message will still come through loud and clear.
Finally, Tanzania woke me to the notion that while some beans converse in bold flavors, there are those that can sing a lively and bright trill, and not the same song to everyone within listening distance. When other makers found plum or cherry with Tanzania, I heard softer warbles of rose and tea, and lessons in how makers might not just taste different notes, but on our best days coax a song waiting to be heard.
Cacao, for all our grocery store candy aisle one flavor indifference, for the climactic prominence at the finale of a fine meal or ensconced in a glass case like the sensual edible jewel it can be, for all those bars we crave and the handfuls of chips we nibble, is a changeling in the midst of taking flight. We who make craft chocolate like to think we have a hand in the metamorphosis, that it is by our skill and craft and fine-tuned touch that we set free whatever’s in the cacao that’s meant to be. But maybe we’re just listeners, and by being willing to listen to the origins as they speak can pass along a story in the making.
On the river we know where we’re going because downstream is the only option. But how we get there (and who rides with us) is where the fun and adventure, and some eye-squinching bravery comes in. It’s easy to think and hope where we’re headed is the bucket list nirvana of a place we’ve never seen, or of making good chocolate, but the journey really just takes us back to where we began. When we get there we find a an empty shell reminder of where we started, hardened into the truth of how far we’ve come. And If we hold it to our ear, a siren song telling us where we want to go next.
You impacted my day! I can feel the sun and the spray from the white water, and almost taste that chocolate tang as it melts in my mouth. Thanks for this evocative moment
I'm just finding your wonderful substack now. I am a writer who feels very strongly about chocolate. To find someone who can write about it, teach it, and sing it with beautiful writing is a more than a little nub of goodness in the world.